South Coast Rail Replacement

Recent engineering works around Portsmouth and Southampton has brought out a variety of interesting buses and coaches to the south coast in recent weeks. With Portsmouth rail replacement in the weekends coming up to Easter, over the Easter weekend itself, the lines around Southampton up to Winchester were closed. 

On Easter Monday, with the increased sunshine in the afternoon, I headed off to the Central station in Hampshire, where I spent a couple of hours sampling what was on offer. Today's blog entry is a photographic record of what was on offer.

First up was one of BlueStar's brilliant EvoSeti-bodied Volvo B8L tri-axle double decks. Three were noted on Monday - fleet nos. 1051, 1053 (pictured here) and 1056. These are primarily allocated to Barton Peveril College services on a Monday to Friday, with their additional capacity necessary for college journeys. They always appeared to be at home on rail replacement services, although have only recently begun appearing on these operations.

Sticking with the BlueStar theme, the line via Eastleigh and Chandlers Ford towards Romsey was also closed, although journeys could still be made via Redbridge Junction. ADL Enviro200MMC fleet no. 260 (HF18 CKG) does the honours here, arriving from Romsey (despite what the display shows).

Tomorrows Travel operate from Poole and I've only recently noticed them on the rail replacement scene. Nearly new HF75 YSB does the honours here as it departs the north west car park with a service for Winchester. 

Down from Newbury for the day is Reading Buses' fleet no. 787 - SN16 OHE - always immaculately turned out. One of the highlights in recent years are Newbury Buses weekend day trips - £25 for a day out is great value to far-flung destinations such as Barry Island, Brighton, Hastings, Poole, Weymouth and Weston-super-Mare - well worth a look! It reminds me of days of old where local bus companies - such as Provincial or Wilts & Dorset - used to offer special trips out using surplus stock at weekends or school holidays.

I don't photograph many coaches and am not au-fait with makes and bodies, but here is Mervyn's Coaches resplendent OIL 4318 arriving in to Southampton.

Wheelers are not as prominent as they were approximately a decade ago, where they appeared to operate every tendered service in north Hampshire (slight hyperbole, of course). here is MO74 WTL on stand at Southampton Central having arrived from Winchester. 

Xelabus fleet is very impressive these days, with very new ADL Enviro400MMCs being used across the network, primarily on contract services in the week and rail replacement at weekends. This is fleet no. 587 (YX75 KVK) arriving in to the temporary bus terminus in the north west station car park. 

Rail replacement work is always a good time to capture those buses of Xelabus in special liveries for certain contracts. Here is fleet no. 582 (YY74WPE) standing out of service along Blechynden Terrace. 

Finally for today is Fairmanns Travel ADL Dart SLF RIG 3820, new as LK56 JKO to First Berkshire as their fleet no. 43926. It was initually used on Pegasus Park and Ride services and is now often found on rail replacement contracts - this was arriving from Romsey I think. 

Always a lot of variety locally on rail replacement work. Thank you for viewing!

James